Comfortable Relapse

No, but two wrongs makes a hypocrite
You’re awfully nobel
Somewhat lame
Your are wrong like beastiality
But much less sick
A taboo term for you, you
Fear the association

The next morning of our relationship—
No makeup and foul breath
Turn away in disgust or to spare the other?
The point of no return

Hide from the things you fear
I take cover from you
May 7, 2002

80 MPH

What calms better than
Cuticles when driving?
Directionless mastery
Sooths every pore with
Pounding cool air that
Still holds a memory
Of the day
Roll the window down a
Bit further
Gravel road and paved
Plan, but not until tomorrow
May 7, 2002

Who?

She wipes crushed epiphany from her cheek
Smiles and says, “you’re ok, too”
She once learned the stealth of spellbound
Merry-go-round self-transformation
Always another creation
Of her own
Learned to tie her shoes early
And now walks bare soled
To bear which soul she chooses
To define her today
May 6, 2002

On the Road

Watchful, weary
Uphold your hold on novelty
Two weeks to know me,
Two moments to forget
Where you wear me, aware
Of the lack of commitment necessary
Flailing, keep from failing
Bad days good nights another
Solitary lunch
Poetry on napkins
Bypass passive hesitation by
Ordering another
Repeat receipts for familiar faces
Digital memories of each
Leave the landmarks
And leave my mark
April 30, 2002

Faithfully Intoxicated

Amid mastodon faith
I shirk fully comprehending my duty
Where I walk more cautiously,
I have stumbled
Cower beneath thundering, righteous
Hooves with integrity
And attempt to awaken
I observe through calloused pupils
Like the bulbous bottom of a beer schooner
Your pressures, your strengths
Shudder from the painfully vivid
Reality we endure without intoxication
Drumming my finger tips on your skull
Maybe you’ll also wake
April 28, 2002

Beside Me

Masterpiece of emotion, genius
Of the soul
Wishing for circumstance within
My control
Memories rudely ingrained
More painful
Because of content or situation current?
Torrents
Fall above
Whetting your absence on my mind
Unborn journeys, winds of remembering
Emerson’s folly says give all to love
If my solemn wish puts you
Beside me,
I appreciate his contribution
April 23, 2002

Vicariously, Politically Incorrect

During the football games these men are doing other things
Which they deem more important because they
Have no choice
Or because they feel trapped in a routine
Or they can’t face their lives
Without self medicating
Poverty, low self esteem, broken soul

Negros and the night watchman are more similar in their shame they
Have no choice
Polacks may be alcoholics or nursing away problems, or a hard day at work
They may be the most “ashamed”

These men are proud in both senses of the word
Proud of their sons
Proud men—marked by constraining or exacting self-respect

Irony
Because these men provide for their families
They can’t be with their families
Why is the Pollack not with his wife
Or his son’s football game?

Dreams of the heroes they wish
They were to their families
Dreaming of the heroes they want their sons
To be
In the football game
Living vicariously through their sons
Who have freedom and valor
And possibility and opportunity

The sons’ power and determination—beauty of soul—contrasts the father’s
hopelessness and shame
The night watchman is ruptured, his soul has been crushed,
His pride and hope have burst and drained out of him
Over many years

Women are starved not for food, which their hardworking husbands provide,
But for companionship, “love”
Beautiful lines

No one thinks their activities or professions
Are heroic and no one, not even their families
Respect or thank them
This absence of gratitude is like
Those winter Sundays
Even though the workers families probably appreciate the hard work the fathers
expound
They don’t acknowledge
Just as the son whose father warms
The house for him every morning.
Aug. 15, 2002